The Never Ending Ideology Leads To The Never Ending War

Iraq War About to Equal Time U.S. Spent Fighting WWII

Imagine that... Our troops have spent almost the same amount of time fighting in Iraq that we spent fighting in World War II. We have also spent that much time in Afghanistan. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan are anywhere near where we expect them to be. Our troops are pulling extended duty in both places without any clear idea of when they will be rotated home.

In WWII we had some causes that were just and focused. Despite several failures along the way, the goal in WWII was focused and fully understood. In WWII, despite any violations committed by the other side, and despite despicable acts in battle, and despite the need to end the war in a timely manner, we adhered to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. We did not treat our prisoners with disrespect, maltreatment or torture. We did not strip them down, collar them like animals, and humiliate them in front of others. Certainly living as a POW was not the best of circumstances, but our prisoners were not mistreated deliberately by our troops.

In WWII, if our troops acted unjustly, they were brought to justice. The number of deliberate massacres, rapes, murders and mistreatment of civilians by our troops in WWII never approached the number we have experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan. The warlords, drug dealers and pockets of Taliban resistance fighters are winning the battle in Afghanistan. The sectarian militias and secretive pockets of insurgents are winning almost every battle in Iraq.

Soon there will be a complete breakdown into civil war in Iraq and there is absolutely nothing we can do to prevent it. The funding for the Shi'ites is coming from Syria and Iran and is undermining every effort to negotiate a peaceful approach. The Sunnis are undermining peace everywhere there is a Sunni majority. While the Kurds are trying to stay above the fray, there is every hope that there will be a kurdish homeland at the end of the conflicts that are occurring in Iraq. Funding for the Kurds is coming from every corner in the Middle East where the Kurds have been mistreated and isolated, including corners of Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and many of the Muslim states that were once under the domination of the Soviet Union.

We have not approached the events in Iraq with an effective plan from the gitgo. Now, due to the incompetence of our own leadership--an incompetence that was caused by the fact that ideology meant more than justice, principle or fact--we are stuck. If we pull out--even in a phased pullout--we leave the entire status of Iraq in disarray. We will promote the idea of an all-out civil war, open the region to undue influence by regimes that are inherently focused on supporting terrorism to obtain its goals, and we will undermine every effort to effect stability in the entire Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Sub-Continent.

The Iraqi defense forces and police are essentially powerless and maintain a sectarian identity within its own command structure. While other nations in the region import police forces from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Jordan and elsewhere--places that already have established police force training units and owe no loyalty to sectarian masters--our efforts have been to re-establish police forces from people that are not prepared to do what it takes. There are very few heroes among the Iraqi police forces.

When the US undermined and disbanded the Iraqi military--a move supported by the Bush-appointed ambassador, his Secretary of Defense, and every member of the Bush administration--the goal of ever establishing justice, a fairly implemented security
approach, and a means to subdue the insurgents and geurillas was also undermined.

We have not worked well with the powers that have some influence in the Middle East. The idea of non-Muslim, western forces being present in any Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East is an offense to most Muslims. Even the short polls conducted in Iraq demonstrate that we are no longer wanted there. If we had worked with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt, we could have a non-sectarian, politically disconnected peace-keeping force in place that could facilitate re-establishing stability in a much more effective manner. But we are not really interested in peace, we are committed to extracting our pound of flesh in the way of oil. After all, someone has to pay us for allowing Halliburton and others to operate without any restrictions on fraud, misappropriation, and outright rip-offs.

So we have munged the whole deal and now we are in a situation where we have essentially become not only the world's terrorism cops, but also the idiots that have no idea how to really deal with terrorism... the proof of those statements is that prior to our invasion and occupation of Iraq there were no connections to terrorism in Iraq--outside of the terror that Hussein and the Baathists inflicted upon their own people.

In the USA Today article that prompted this post the WWII veterans interviewed express not understanding the war on terror. I have to admit, that as a veteran of two branches of military service, I too have trouble understanding this approach. My training in social work, psychology, sociology, legal studies and criminal justice allows me to understand the need to rein in criminals that effect terror, but there is no military action that can be justifiably used to find, arrest and deal with terrorists. Terrorists are criminals. We need to address the issue of terrorism via methods used in all investigations of crime. Conducting a war on terrorism is the same as conducting a war on water. It doesn't make sense.